The paper focuses on the sociological adaptation and development of the mental mapping method within the study of national identity. 'Mental map' is defined as a spatial image or model formed over time in the individual or collective consciousness, while the method of mental mapping is interpreted as a graphic representation of a certain area by…

A survey with nine meteorological charts, maps, and images from a 2015 significant weather event was administered to meteorologists (N = 93) to identify which spatial thinking skills they report using with each chart, map, and image. Results reveal high reported use of mental animation (74.6%), disembedding (72.4%), and perspective taking (71.6%)…

Augmented reality (AR) sandboxes are useful tools in helping students develop a three-dimensional understanding of topographic maps and landforms. Research on the AR sandbox indicates that students enjoy it, but evidence about student learning gains is inconclusive. This study aims to understand how students engage with these tools as a precedent…

In the field of geographical and environmental education, maps and geo-referenced information are frequently used, in which the earth's surfaces are represented in a two-dimensional (2D) way. Students have difficulty interpreting the relief representation and switching between 2D and 3D scenarios. Digital terrain modelling is added to the…

We have developed a metabolic pathways visualization skill test (MPVST) to gain greater insight into our students' abilities to comprehend the visual information presented in metabolic pathways diagrams. The test is able to discriminate students' visualization ability with respect to six specific visualization skills that we identified as key to…

This study investigates the strategies and assumptions that college students entering an introductory physical geology laboratory use to interpret topographic maps, and follows the progress of the students during the laboratory to analyze changes in those strategies and assumptions. To elicit students' strategies and assumptions, we created and…

The thoughts of a group of preservice teachers about classroom technology were studied by asking them to visualize their ideal classrooms. They were then asked to visualize, or visually represent, their thinking on paper by completing a map of the ideal classroom. Subjects were 106 education majors, 8 of whom were male. Classroom maps were…